


Parchment & Coffee

by SunlightSapphic



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Library, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Artist Keith (Voltron), Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Crush at First Sight, Fluff, Gay Keith (Voltron), I Tried, I dont know how to tag things, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Love at First Sight, M/M, Pining Lance (Voltron), dont be mean to me please, this is my first fanfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-26 21:22:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15009722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunlightSapphic/pseuds/SunlightSapphic
Summary: Lance, who usually hates the library, starts loving it all because of one pretty boy with a pretty voice.





	Parchment & Coffee

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably really bad, but I think it's really cute and I really liked the idea of it and I hope you do too!!

Lance’s head hits against the desk as he groaned loudly, trying and failing to grab the attention of his two friends. Despite Lance’s multiple failed attempts, he continues to whine to them about everything, from the smell of the old building to the angry looks of the old librarian. 

Finally, after almost ten minutes of complaining, he finally gets a reaction out of Pidge as she chucks a paper ball at him, attempting to shut him up. Hunk, after seeing the projectile being flung towards Lance, also starts to pay attention to his friend.

“What do you want? Hunk and I are trying to study.” Pidge asks, annoyance clear in her voice as she continues reading from the textbook in front of her.

“I’m so bored! We’ve been here for like three hours, can’t we leave yet?” Lance asks, as he leans forward towards his friends to pout miserably at them. Hunk smiles sympathetically but doesn’t say a word as he also turns back to his study material.

“We’ve been here for half an hour, stop being a baby.” Pidge replies, not taking her eyes off of the work in front of her.

“If you really want to leave you can, Pidge and I’ll meet you back home later on.” Hunk suggests, obviously believing that his plan would solve the problem, but it just wouldn’t do. Lance would much rather sit doing nothing in an old library with his friends then be home alone with nothing to do.

“Fine I’ll stay, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to enjoy it.” Lance grumbles, leaning his face against his hand to stop him from faceplanting into the desk.  
Pidge stops her studying to stare at Lance in irritation before shaking her head at her friend.

“If you really want something to do there’s some comic books over there somewhere.” She points lazily behind herself to the back of the library, her nose already in the textbook once again.

Lance squawks loudly at his friends, standing quickly from his chair and throwing his hands in the air. His mouth was agape as he stared at the two people in front of him.

“There’s comic books here? Why didn’t you tell me? I would have been having way more fun if you had told me that three hours ago!” the librarian was full on glaring at Lance’s outburst now, a second away from asking him to leave the vicinities.

“Just shut up before you get kicked out, idiot.” Pidge rolls her eyes at her friend, but it was impossible not to smile at his dramatic antics.

“Don’t miss me too much!” Lance shouts as he jogs backwards towards the comic section, saluting to the two friends who were laughing and shaking their heads at him.

Lance’s mood had increased tenfold in a matter of seconds, a wide smile on his face as he wandered back and forth in the one row of comic books.

As his eyes scanned over the covers of the comics, his thumb and forefinger stroking decisively over an imaginary beard, he heard the sweetest sound. It sounded like pure magic, the voice of a stranger singing softly from the row over.

Not wanting to be caught spying, he snuck a glance through the space between the books. The voice, despite being incredibly beautiful, could never be as pretty as the boy it belonged to. Lance’s eyes danced across the stranger’s features, from his black hair pulled into a ponytail, to his violet eyes, to his lips as they moved with the lyrics.

Lance didn’t believe in love at first sight, but whatever the feeling in his chest was, sure felt a lot like love. Obviously, that was impossible, he’d never even met the guy, but his heart still fluttered unnaturally as he stared longingly at the boy.

The boy never once noticed Lances eyes through the cracks of the bookcases, continuing to sing softly as he organized and reorganized the shelves. Whenever the boy would move down a row, Lance would follow, enticed by the melody.

Pidges voice broke through his thoughts a little while later, calling to tell him that they’re ready to leave. Lances face fell as he realized he’d be leaving the library, leaving the pretty boy.

He stared at the boy for a second longer before sprinting towards where Hunk and Pidge were waiting by the entrance.

He took one last glance back before exiting, an unspoken promise to return soon.

___ ___

Soon was far sooner than Lance thought it would be. He returned the very next day, searching the aisles for the boy with a pretty voice and an even prettier face.

Lance found him after a quick five-minute wander, the boy wasn’t singing today, probably due to how packed the library was right now, there were people everywhere. The boy did look extremely nice today however and Lance was fine with just watching him move around the books with an accustomed elegance, like he’d been arranging books his entire life. He got a few strange looks from people that wandered into the aisle and saw him staring through the shelves, with a dopey look upon his face. Thankfully enough nobody asked any questions, just grabbed the book they had been searching for and left.

An hour had passed of Lance watching the boy, majority of the population would find what he was doing to be incredibly creepy, hell Lance found it incredibly creepy, but he couldn’t help it, something about the boy always brought him back.

___ ___

Lance goes back every day after that, the boy is pretty much there all the time, just arranging the books into the correct order, and despite Lance usually finding anything to do with libraries and books boring, he can’t help but be fascinated by the boy.

The boy rarely sings anymore, not with the amount of people around all the time now, it’s coming up to midterms and pretty much everyone is studying there asses off, even Pidge and Hunk spend their time in the library most days studying, Lance however spends his time there watching the boy and only watching the boy. He’s started having to stay up until the early hours of the morning to keep up with all of his classes, but he doesn’t have an inkling of regret.

Hunk and Pidge are starting to get suspicious of why Lance is always out somewhere, not seeming to believe that he’s going to the library to study. Which now that he thinks about it is a terrible excuse. They’ve never once seen Lance study when they are at the library with him, so they definitely won’t believe he studies when they aren’t there.

He’ll just have to pray that they don’t ask any questions, or worse, follow to see what he’s up to. He can already imagine the catastrophe of teasing that’ll come with them knowing about the pretty boy.

Lance shakes the thoughts from his head as he continues to gaze at the boy. He’s so smitten, and he doesn’t even have the boy’s name.

___ ___

Lance has had to stop going to the library every day, in the last two weeks five people have quit at the coffee shop Lance works at and he’s had to pick up way more hours then he used to. He’s been working in the early mornings, going to college throughout the day, and working again in the afternoon and night. In spite of this he still finds time at least once a week to go to the library.

Right now, he’s at work, making coffee and serving customers. Luckily for him, it’s not nearly as busy as any other day over the past two weeks and he can finally relax against the counter waiting for any customers to arrive.

It was an hour from closing time, midnight, when the sound of the bell hanging above the door jingled around the small coffee shop. Lance situates himself behind the register, awaiting whoever it is to come up and order.

Lance was expecting it to be some college student with bags under their eyes and messy hair from staying up all night, to walk up to the counter.

What he wasn’t counting on was it being the pretty boy from the library, of course the boy fit the criteria of what he was expecting, with being a college student with eyebags, messy hair and way too much work to be considered healthy.

Lance stared dumbly for a moment as the boy’s eyes scanned over the menu above Lance, completely ignorant of Lance’s gawking. Luckily, Lance had put on the usual smile he has when he serves customers before the boys eyes glanced from the menu to Lance’s face.

The boys eyes widened a fraction, unbeknownst to Lance, when he saw who his server was.

“What can I get you today?” Lance asked, cheery smile plastered onto his face, just a tad more real then usual, but no one had to know that.

“Uh, can you get me anything that will keep me awake for the next five hours?” he asked, biting his lip shyly. His order drew a laugh from Lance’s chest, obviously surprising the boy as his eyes widened before a small smile grew across his lips.

“I have just the right thing for that, but may I ask why you need to stay up until four am?” Lance asked through small chuckles, already preparing the drink.

“I have to finish a drawing by tomorrow and I have nothing. The topic of the drawing is pretty easy, anything that inspires you, and… I’m probably going to fail, unless I can bullshit my way through it somehow.” The boy laughs nervously as he explains his situation. Lance’s smile drops from his face when he hears it.

“Shit, that’s tough dude. I’m sorry.” Lance replies, genuine concern in his voice as he hands over the coffee.

“It’s all good, I’ll figure something out.” The boy waves his hand in dismissal to Lance’s concern and is about to leave when Lance blurts out probably the dumbest thing he’s ever said.

“Maybe I can help.” He regrets the words as soon as their out of his mouth, he doesn’t know anything about art, how is he going to help? Plus, the boy is looking at him with wide eyes, raised eyebrows and a slack jaw and it’s obvious neither of them expected for Lance to say that, but the words are out in the world now and can’t be taken back.

“I’d like that.” The boy tilts his head slightly with a smile on his face and it does things to Lance’s heart. Why is this boy so cute?

“Ok, um, I don’t really know anything about art but I can try to help you. Try being the key word in that sentence.” Lance rambles as he leads the boy, that he still hasn’t gotten the name of, to a nearby table. 

The boy laughs at his rambling, telling him that it’s fine and that listening to people talk usually helps anyway, which makes Lance feel a little less useless, he can talk, he’s good at talking.

The two of them sit down across from one another and the boy gets his sketchbook out of his bag along with a pencil.

“So, what do I talk about?” Lance asks, nervousness back full force. He brushes his hand through his hair, a nervous tick, as the boy laughs.

“Literally anything, from your friends and family to what you do in your free time to your favorite animal. I swear, anything with help.” The boy instructs and Lance nods, he can do that.

“Ok, I guess I’ll start with my family, they’re amazing and I love them to bits. I haven’t seen them in forever though because they live back in Cuba and I miss them tons, but they’re all coming up in a few weeks. I’m so excited for that. My apartment, which I share with my two best friends Hunk and Pidge, is going to be jampacked. I have so many relatives, it’s impossible to count.” As Lance rants on and on about his family, he notices that the boy hasn’t started drawing yet and there’s only half an hour until Lance has to close up shop, but there’s a soft smile on the boy’s face, so Lance continues anyway.

It’s when Lance is reminiscing about Varadero beach when he’s interrupted.

“What’s your name?” The boy asks, and it shocks Lance into silence. He never would have thought the boy would want to know his name, but supposedly he does.  
“I’m Lance. And you?” this is his chance, Lance can finally stop calling him “the boy” or “pretty boy” and can actually use his real name.

“I’m Keith.” Keith, he likes that, it sounds… right. It sounds perfect.

“Well Keith, it’s lovely to meet you.” Lance smiles and Keith returns with his own small grin. Lance never thought his heart would race so much at a singular smile.

“Nice to meet you too Lance.” Keith’s voice is soft when he speaks, just above a whisper. They sit in silence for a minute afterwards just staring and smiling fondly at one another.

“Can I draw you?” Keith’s voice breaks the silence, surprising Lance and making him jump slightly. Keith laughs slightly at his reaction and Lance thinks that the embarrassment of the moment was totally worth hearing Keith laugh. He wants to make Keith laugh every second of every day, for the rest of his life.

“Yeah, you can draw me.” As soon as Lance replies, Keith’s pencil is on the paper, the lead scraping across the parchment with practiced grace, like he’s been drawing his entire life.  
Although, Lance would probably find anything Keith does graceful, hell, he finds the way he stacks books to be graceful.

If Keith tripped over air, Lance would probably deem him as the embodiment of elegance.

Lance lets out an affectionate sigh as he daydreams about the boy sat before him. If Keith heard the small noise, he didn’t show it, continuing the sketch of Lance, periodically glancing up to see if he had drawn specific things correctly.

Lance almost forgets that he has to close up until he glances away from Keith’s face for a second and catches the time on the clock behind Keith’s head.

“Shit, it’s already 12, I have to close up.” Keith’s head shoots up quickly and he checks the time on his phone before swearing under his breath.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize the time, I’ll leave.” Keith is quick to stand up and start packing everything away, but Lance is also pretty agile and he grabs Keith’s wrist before he has a chance to leave.

“You can stay, it usually takes a while to clean up anyway, you can keep me company.” Lance smiles softly at Keith. Keith glances towards the door and back towards Lance and where Lance’s hand is still secured around Keith’s wrist in a gentle hold.

Lance was almost certain he was going to refuse the offer and get out of their as quick as possible, but Keith is full of surprises, he smiles back at Lance and slowly lowers himself back into his seat, taking his things back out of his bag.

Lance’s smile grows as he sees Keith continue the drawing of him, from what Lance could see of the sketch, it’s really good, he’s honestly speechless.

Lance starts cleaning up as Keith draws, without even realizing it, Lance starts singing quietly. It’s a tune that’s definitely familiar, but he can’t seem to think of where he heard it. The sound of pencil on paper stops as Keith listens in on Lance’s singing. Lance notices it, but doesn’t say anything, just assumes that Keith has finished or that he needs to glance at Lance quickly to draw more accurately.

But a few minutes go by without a sound from Keith. Lance glances up with a raised eyebrow and is met by a wide eyed, open mouthed expression.  
“What?” Lance asks, nervous all of a sudden with the attention.

“How do you know that song?” Keith asks, clearly extremely stunned and confused.

“Uh, I actually have no idea, I probably heard it on the radio or something. Why?” Lance is confused as well now, is the song he singing like really bad or something?

“That’s um… that’s my song.” Lance’s eyes widen at the statement. Keith’s song!?

“Huh!?” Lance is completely and utterly bewildered. “You write songs?”

“Yes, I write songs but nobody has ever heard them, how do you…” Keith’s face clears of confusion when he realizes how Lance knows his song.

“What?” Lance asks apprehensively, scared of what Keith just came to the conclusion of.

“It was you, the guy in the library.” Keith jumps up out of his chair and runs over to Lance to stand in front of him.

Shit, Keith had seen Lance? Lance thought he had never been noticed, he’d thought he’d been so sly and clever, but apparently not, because Keith now knows that he’s a major stalker and he’s probably ruined every chance he ever had with him.

“Uhhh.” Is all Lance could utter, because what the hell are you supposed to say in response to that? ‘Yeah I watched you creepily through the bookshelf as you sang.”? Or how about ‘Yeah, I may be a stalker but I hope we can still fall in love and get married.”? Yeah, no. Never going to happen.

“I’m not mad!” Keith rushes out, he can obviously see that Lance is nervous and the words that just came out if his mouth make Lance go from nervous to a mess of confusion in a second.

“What?”

“I’m not mad, I know I should probably find it really creepy, but I thought it was kind of cute.” Keith’s voice started off confident and loud before dwindling down to a soft, shy sound by the end.

Cute? Keith thought Lance’s stalking was cute? Of all things… Cute!? This boy was going to kill him, honestly.

Before Lance can get any words in however, Keith is talking again.

“Plus, I saw you around the library sometimes and I kind of maybe always wanted it to be you.” Keith bites his lip nervously, looking towards the floor and hiding the blush on his cheeks, twiddling his thumbs in a shy nervousness.

“Do you want to go on a date with me?” Lance exclaims rather unceremoniously. The question caused Keith to go from staring at the floor to staring at Lance with a bright red blush coloring his cheeks and his lips slightly parted in surprise. “I mean, you don’t have to, it was just a question, you can totally say no if you want to, it’s completely your ch-“

Lance is cut off as Keith jumps into Lance, wrapping his arms around his neck and hugging him tight. Lance’s arms lift slowly to wrap around Keith’s waist, clinging softly.

“Yes yes yes yes yes!” Keith squealed. Squealed. It was probably one of the cutest sounds to ever grace Lances ears.

Lance chuckles at the reply, squeezing around Keith’s waist tighter, molding their bodies together and slowly leaning down to place his face in Keith’s neck, inhaling the scent of his deodorant.

When they break from the hug, they stare at each other for far too long with matching blushes and matching smiles. They walk out of the shop, Lance rambling about how perfect their date is going to be and Keith smiling adoringly at the boy next to him.

Maybe it was love at first sight after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it!


End file.
